In complex intelligent networks, network devices generate error messages. These error messages help technicians repair the network devices. However, additional insight can be gained by collecting all the network error messages at a central location. The error message includes event type information and target information. Event type information includes messages such as a certain action cannot be completed. Target type information includes various physical equipment, such as telephone numbers, circuits, equipment ID (identification) and equipment location. Present systems only determine the number of errors for event types. When an event type has a high repeat appearance of counts, then the technician knows that further investigation is required. Unfortunately this requires the technician to manually separate the targets to determine which targets are the likely cause of the errors. This requires considerable effort and time.
Thus there exists a need for a method and system to catalog and detect network faults. The system should also be capable of tracking both event types and targets and automatically determine trouble spots.